The Thing with Feathers
by MsWhich
Summary: Alistair becomes lost in the woods, and Morrigan has a rather unorthodox plan to help him. AU insofar as I have slightly changed the way the Dark Ritual works.


_This is a new fandom for me, and my first story in it. I hope you enjoy._

They were lost. Lost, and cold.

Alistair wouldn't admit it — he doggedly insisted that he knew exactly where they were. But they'd just passed the exact same stand of elfroot ferns for the second time, Morrigan was sure of it. She'd grown up in the Wilds, for the Maker's sake.

They were in the Frostback Mountains, and had been for some weeks. Morrigan had taken to using warming spells to keep herself from freezing solid, but they only went so far. She could barely remember a time when the air hadn't hurt to breathe, when their surroundings hadn't been covered in a frosty, unwelcoming blanket of white. They all had furs, bought from a trader in the lowlands — she'd complained at the time about how chill the air had been there, and oh, how warm and inviting it would seem now — but the wind cut right through them. It howled through the hollows and vales of the mountain traverses. She had begun thinking of it as a living creature, with a personality. A _malevolent_ personality.

She hated the wind, and she hated these mountains. And Alistair had lines of worry creased across his brow, uncharacteristic for the Templar, whose excess of self-confidence was, in her opinion, one of his numerous failings. (She knew very well that he was not a Templar, but she enjoyed his sullen look of frustration when she called him that, and so she continued.)

He was supposed to be their guide through this area; he was supposed to know the landmarks. The creases of worry had appeared two days ago, just about the time she'd noticed they were passing the same features over and over again. Today those creases were deeper.

If he'd asked her, she would have given her opinion on which direction to take. Her _correct_ opinion. But he didn't ask her, or anyone. He only grew more serious and silent, trying so hard to lead them. So she let him, keeping her opinion to herself. For that reason, and for one other: A thought had occurred to her some weeks earlier. A foolish thought, no doubt; a senseless thought. She was not prone to having thoughts of either sort. But these were special circumstances, were they not?

They were. She nurtured the thought — foolish, senseless — and allowed it to grow into a semblance of a plan, while the companions traipsed through an unending landscape of frozen death.

—

A few nights later, the party made camp on a barren outcropping of lichen-encrusted stone; there was nowhere else to pitch the tents. Morrigan felt as though her very bones were going to freeze solid.

Alistair clapped his gloved hands together for warmth. "If we keep on a southeast heading, we'll come out at the switchback before the pass. I'm sure of it. No more than ten miles," he said, as they gathered around the evening's bonfire.

"You said that ten miles ago," remarked the assassin, tearing a hunk of bread off the communal loaf.

Morrigan expected a retort from Alistair, but instead he set his mouth into a grim line and said nothing. And his eyes… if she had to guess, she'd say that what she saw there was panic. The healer and the assassin exchanged glances with one another.

"Alistair," Wynne began, "if you'd like to talk about—"

The older mage got no further than that before Alistair rose from his seated position and said, "Trust me, Wynne, when I want your advice, I'll sodding well ask for it." He spun and stalked off to his tent, which he'd set up on the very edge of camp, far away from any of his companions. Wynne sighed, looking every minute of her decades, and murmured, "I'll talk to him."

Morrigan rose abruptly. "No. I will," she said.

Wynne arched an eyebrow in surprise. "That's… kind of you, dear, but are you really sure—"

The witch was already moving. "Of course I'm sure. I wouldn't have said so otherwise, would I?" She turned her back on her astonished companions and followed Alistair.

_If not now, then when?_ she thought. It was time.

—

When she entered his tent — she hadn't bothered announcing herself first — Alistair rolled his eyes and groaned. He'd shed his armor already and left it in a very un-Templar-like heap in the corner. He remained in his jerkin and leggings, sprawled on the narrow cot he used for sleeping.

"Fantastic," he said. "Exactly what I needed today, _you_ coming to… to…" He fished for something devastating and finally came up with, "to invade my privacy!" Then, with downcast eyes, "Or mock me for my stupidity. Or accuse me of mage hunting. Why don't you get out and leave me alone?"

"You don't even know why I'm here," she said, closing the tent behind her in an effort to keep out the cold.

He glanced at her, then back at the ceiling of the tent. "Because you think I'm an idiot and that I've got us all lost and you want to rub it in, I suppose. Tell me I'm wrong."

Morrigan dropped gracefully into a cross-legged position on the floor. She murmured something under her breath, and the tent glowed faintly for a moment.

"What did you do?" Alistair asked her, lifting his head in surprise.

She sniffed. "Is there not an ounce of sense in your body? Cast a silencing spell, of course. We don't need the entire camp hearing our conversation, do we?"

Mollified, he sank back against his cot. "I suppose not." And then, a moment later, "What conversation are we having?"

"We're lost," she said.

"We're not lost!"

"We are lost," she said again, unflapped, "and you are panicking."

"I am.. I am not… I… you think…. _I am not panicking!_"

His face had gone red.

"Oh?" she said. "We've been going in circles for days and every time anyone asks you about it, you act as though you have a stomach full of snakes. It would be rather amusing, in fact, if we weren't in danger of running out of food soon."

The red in his face deepened. "We are _not lost_," he said. "We're ten miles from—"

"Yes, yes," she waved her hands dismissively, "ten miles from the switchback, I heard. Do you expect me to believe that? I don't even think you sold it to the bard, and she's softheaded enough to believe anything."

"Believe what you want," he said. "I don't know why you're here or what you think this is going to accomplish, but you're not helping." His brows knit together and a reddish-purple color flushed his cheeks. He looked angrier than she'd ever seen him outside battle.

"Why don't you admit that you have no idea where we are?" she said. "Is this how you're going to run the country when you're king, Templar? Muddling around uselessly and never asking for help when everyone within, oh, let's say _ten miles,_ knows you need it?"

"Shut up," he told her.

"It's a valid question," she said. "You _are_ going to be king, you know. It might be well for you to develop some leadership skills one of these days. Preferably before we all die in the wilderness."

Needling him like this was partly habitual, but also part of her ill-formed plan. It would provoke him, make him respond to her. Of course, he might respond by simply throwing her out of the tent,… but he hadn't done that yet. He was allowing it. Allowing her to _invade his privacy._ A nameless bird gave a flutter deep in her chest.

Alistair stood abruptly, folding his arms, head nearly brushing the ceiling of the tent. "Maker damn you and the forest you crawled out of, you… you _witch._ I don't _want_ to be king, don't you know that? I don't want to lead people. I'm no bloody good at it, so if you want to come in here and mock me for something I already know, go right ahead! I assume it pleases you in some perverse way."

Morrigan watched with hooded eyes as he ranted. Still he had made no move to eject her.

"All you do is mock me. Every day, it's nothing but how stupid Alistair is and how I didn't finish Templar training and how I'm complete shit as a Grey Warden. _Don't you think I know?_ All of these people are relying on me, to get them off this mountain, to kill the darkspawn, to become King and rule Ferelden, and I'm not good at any of it! Not any of—"

_Yes, _she thought. _I will do this. For better or for worse._

She rose, cat-like, and in one fluid motion came to him, took his head in her hands, and covered his mouth with her own. The last syllable of his tirade fell into muffled silence.

After a split second of shock, he made a surprised cry, and she thought he might push her away or withdraw. But he didn't. He let her kiss him, his eyes wide open. She looked into those sky-blue eyes, open and staring at her, and she felt that flutter again, stronger now. _No, I killed you_, she thought at the creature within her. _I killed you long ago._

But still it stirred.

She teased him with her tongue, little touches, darting it at his lips, gentle and playful. When he at last responded, his kiss in turn was clumsy and crude, but needful. _Yes_, she thought. _Yes, I have wanted this._

After a while, she pulled away. He had never closed his eyes.

"What…" was all he could manage. "Why…"

"You are wound tighter than a drum," she said. Her face was no more than a few inches from his. Her hands rested on his shoulders, broad and strong under the coarse linen of his undershirt.

"And… and you thought this was how to… Morrigan, you _hate_ me," he said.

"Do I?" she answered, lifting her eyes to his.

"You've said as much! On multiple occasions! 'Oh, Alistair, how I hate you!' for example! I—"

She brought her mouth to his again, letting it brush against his lower lip, nipping it with her teeth as she withdrew. He shivered, but did not withdraw, and that bird — not dead, oh no, very much alive, it seemed— spread its wings wide open.

"My mother," she said, "wanted me to wait."

His eyes were uncomprehending, but he let her speak. She could feel him trembling under her touch.

"To be with a man, I mean. To… _lie_ with a man."

"Your mother?" he said, in almost a croak.

"Yes, my mother," she said brightly, in the flippant tone she'd adopted for most of their journey together. It came to her so easily, and she found she could not discuss this any other way. "Surely you remember her. There is…something she expects me to do. At the end of our journey. And she was very clear that I must not do that thing before the appointed time."

"Morrigan," Alistair said, "you're not making any sense. I don't… I mean, what are you _doing_ here?"

_Still he does not push me away_, she thought, with wings beating inside her chest.

She thought about her mother, about what she'd promised the old woman (_not a woman, not really)_, about what she, Morrigan, wanted. What she needed.

_I will tell him_. _I must._

"Alistair, there is a ritual." He opened his mouth, and she laid a finger against it to quiet him. "A dark ritual, involving blood magic. If I, having never taken another man, lie with a Grey Warden and conceive his child, _and_ if I am present when the archdemon is slain, then the Grey Warden will survive. The archdemon's presence will flow into the child instead, and the child will… will become as an Old God. I promised my mother that I would do this."

His eyes were wide in horror. "You promised her _what?"_

She continued, relentless. "It has been her plan all along. It is why she saved you and why she sent me with you. I promised her I would do this, and I promised not to reveal a word of it until the very last hour. And…" Her voice broke slightly. "And I am breaking that promise now."

"_Why_, Morrigan?"

She met his eyes, clear and steady. "Because I want to be free, Alistair. I want to be free of this, and free of her."

Silence fell between them. And then, wrenching it out of some deep part of herself, she said, "And I want you."

"But you hate me," he said again.

Her hands, which had rested on his shoulders this entire time, crept up the nape of his neck; she gently pushed her fingers through his thick, blond hair.

"Do you hate _me_, Alistair?"

He blinked in confusion, not expecting this turnabout. "I… I…maybe. I might. I… I don't know."

"'Tis a simple question, I think. Do you, or do you not, hate me? You certainly send enough barbs and insults my way."

"Yes," he said. "Yes, but… I mean… no. No, I don't hate you! I just.. I just say those things because you… because you are the way you are."

Her fingers wound more tightly through his hair. She was close enough now to feel his heart hammering in his chest.

"And have you never wondered, Alistair, why I am the way I am?"

His voice was hoarse. "I thought… I just thought you didn't like Templars. Or me."

"I don't like Templars," she said. Her voice was fluid with desire. "But you aren't a Templar, are you?"

"I… n-no," he said.

Her fingers traced circles over his scalp, and her body pressed against his. A tremor passed through him at the contact.

"I have wanted you since the moment I saw you in the Kolcari Wilds," she said. "But I had promised, and so I could not."

"Morrigan," he said thickly, "is this witchery?"

She smiled a little. "Only the witchery that any woman has. There is no spell at work here. If you desire me, it is…"

"_If_ I desire you?" he interrupted. "Do you really not know? Are you not aware?"

He pulled her to him, wrapping his arms around her, and looked down into her eyes, searching.

_He is holding me_, she thought. _Of his own free will, he has taken me into his arms._ The wings beating inside her were wild, pulsing things.

"Hope," she said, "is a thing with feathers, they say." He raised his eyebrows in puzzlement, and she shook her head once to clear it. "I did not know, Alistair," she said. "I did not know if you would… want me."

This he understood. He pushed his hips forward into her, leaned down so that his lips were close to her ear. "Do you still not know?"

She felt another thrill pass through her belly.

"Perhaps you should show me," she said, injecting a note of teasing into her voice to hide her nerves.

"Witch," he said, and suddenly his hands gripped her, pushing her, driving her to the cot. _He is so strong_, she thought, as she was falling into his bed. _So much stronger than I._

Carefully, slowly, he laid his body on top of hers, as though he feared he might break her. _Oh, Alistair. _She wrapped her arms around him, pulled him close, wriggled a little beneath him. He groaned, and this pleased her. She slid her hands along his body, feeling it. She was not a weak woman by any means, but his body was all hard muscle and sinew.

"Do you have any idea," he said into her ear, "how _much_ I have wanted you? It is all I can do not to stare at you every day, and if I insult you with barbs it is only to hide how much I want you in my bed."

She writhed her hips against his, and he made a long, low sound of need. "I am in your bed now, Alistair," she said.

Her hands snaked down between their bodies, and she found the canvas ties of his trousers, began tugging at them to undo them. It was difficult; his hardness made the fabric taut and unforgiving. When at last she'd freed his cock from its fabric prison, she wrapped one hand around it, and felt Alistair jerk in response. His hips bucked slowly against hers, thrusting instinctively against their layers of clothing.

"Give me your mouth," she whispered, and he obliged her with a long, deep, searching kiss, gasping occasionally when her fingers danced over a sensitive area.

When he pulled away at last, raising up on his forearms and gazing down at her, he said, "Promise me this isn't trickery."

She arched an eyebrow, lifted herself to nip at his earlobe. "Trickery?" she said.

"Yes. I don't know, some witchcraft or a plot concocted by your mother, or… I don't know. Just…" He trailed off and looked at her with pleading eyes. "If this isn't real, then I don't… just, please. Please promise me."

"Alistair," she said, "if and when my mother finds out about this, she is likely to try to kill both of us, very next thing. As for it being real… I am real, am I not? You are real. We are both here and that is real. And my desire is real. I want nothing more than to have you inside me… _Templar_."

She could feel his prick stiffen against her. "Morrigan," he said, "I've never…"

"Nor have I," she breathed, "but I expect we shall both soon remedy that." With a quick, simple motion, she undid the wrap fastenings on her skirt and pulled it aside, letting it fall to the floor next to them.

"You seem to be entirely overdressed, Templar," she said.

His eyes were unfocused, dilated in lust and desire. _Look at him_, she thought. She'd not seen a man like this before, so completely undone by his need. She knew men. Their lust came paired with greed, with manipulation, with lies and promises. But not this man. Alistair's lust was… was _clean_. Clean and open and honest. His want was simple, written in clear lines across his face.

He raised himself up slightly and shifted himself out of his trousers. The length of his cock was pressed against her thigh now, hard and insistent there. She brushed her lips against the hollow of his throat.

"I'm… I'm going to do this now, Morrigan. I'm going to."

She reached down, guided him with one hand towards her. He made a sound like, "Ah." She breathed into his ear, "Yes. Now all you have to do is push."

And he did.

One long, slow thrust later, he was sheathed completely inside her, and Morrigan arched helplessly against him. How could anything be _so good_? He withdrew a little, and then slid in again, and unable to help herself, she moaned and raised her hips to meet him. Another long, slow thrust. It was maddening, but Alistair was rigid and trembling; she guessed that he was desperately trying to control himself. She didn't want to speak, couldn't speak, really. She just let him slide into her, over and over again.

A time later — shorter probably than it felt — he gasped, "I can't keep… I need it… faster… but I don't want to hurt you… oh Maker, Morrigan…"

_Stupid boy_, she thought hazily, and managed, "What are you afraid of, Templar? That you'll break me?" The look on his face in return — hungry, arrogant, _desperate_— sent a lightning thrill down her spine.

"As if you could," she said, and wrapped her legs around his, raked her nails down his back.

She saw the whites of his eyes, just for a second, as they rolled back into his head.

"Oh, Morrigan," he growled. "Oh, I am damned sure going to _try_." With that, he thrust himself into her, with all the power in his body. She writhed against him and cried out, an animal howl that could probably be heard all the way back in Denerim, silencing spell be damned, but she didn't care, she didn't care about anything but Alistair inside her.

"Try harder," she gasped, goading him deliberately. He growled like some feral animal, and forced his mouth onto hers just as he buried his cock deep within her again…and then again. Clumsy and crude, just like his kiss, but very effective; oh, very effective indeed.

_You are being taken, Morrigan_, she thought through the onslaught of sensation overtaking her, _he is not making love to you, he is _taking _you. _She felt a shivery sensation come over her, and tried to cry out his name, but it was muffled by his own mouth. His fingers gripped her shoulders so tightly she knew they would bruise.

_They will all see_, she thought. _Tomorrow they will see and know._ She found that she did not particularly care.

She had not thought the Templar had this in him. He held her firmly to the bed while he thrust into her so hard she wanted to scream. It had gone from pleasure to pain and then wrapped back around again, and she could not tell what she was feeling, except that she wanted him not to stop, never to stop.

"Witch," he gasped finally, and she could feel him jerking inside her, caught in the throes of orgasm. "Witch… Morrigan… mine…."

He collapsed onto her with his cock still inside her, and she wrapped her legs around him to hold him there. He moaned, and kissed her neck; she could feel him still pulsing, in time with his heart.

—

For a while he dozed, and she laid next to him, listening to his slow, steady breathing. She wondered if he would be ready again soon. She hoped so, and then wondered at herself, that hope was something she was now, apparently, allowed. Alistair opened his eyes, stretched, turned towards her. He said nothing at first, only looking at her. _Admiring_ her, she thought. She didn't mind, for once. This was something that he was now allowed.

After a time, he said, "How does this end?"

She thought, and he let her. Finally she said, "I don't know. But I know how it doesn't end."

His fingers traced through her hair, and she wondered if it would feel different if — _when _— he was king. But that was a thought for another time.

"It doesn't end with my mother," she said. "And it doesn't end tonight."

"Good," he said. "Because I need longer than just tonight. A lot longer." In his voice she could hear the boy he'd been and the man he'd become, twined together like a thick vine.

"Forever, I think, is how long I need."

The thing with feathers soared inside her; she could not imagine ever having forgotten its name.

"All right," she whispered to her lover-prince.

His thumb traced down her cheekbone and she turned toward it, let her face rest in the hollow of his hand.

—

Some time later, in the small hours of the morning, Alistair was just awake enough to be aware of Morrigan's pleasant weight resting against him. Sleeping with a woman seemed as good as he'd always imagined it to be. Had she had similar thoughts, in her childhood? For that matter, had she ever even _seen_ a man in the Kolcari Wilds? Well… Templars perhaps…

A thought struck him, and he opened his eyes. Morrigan sensed the change in his breathing. "Mm?" she said.

"You grew up in the Wilds."

"Mm-hm." She wriggled a bit closer to him, draped her arm across his belly.

"So how could you have become lost in the wilderness?" he asked, sounding genuinely confused.

"Who says I did?" she murmured, and then forestalling the obvious question: "You never asked."

She felt the rhythmic tightening of his abdomen as he chuckled. "It doesn't matter anymore," he said. "I'm not lost now either."

—


End file.
